Uploading requirements

Browser and OS compatibility

You might encounter difficulties when uploading if you are using an older browser and/or computer, so we recommend keeping things up to date. We do encourage users to use Google Chrome or Firefox to have the best SoundCloud experience.

Confirmed email address attached to your account

In order to upload, you must first confirm the email address attached to your account. If you did not receive an account confirmation email, please check your spam folder.

If you still have not received this, please send yourself another one through your Settings page.

Time left on your account

Each SoundCloud plan has its own upload allowance. For a Free user, you can upload a total of 180 minutes (3 hours). A Pro user can upload a total of 360 minutes (6 hours) and a Pro Unlimited user has no upload limit at all*. Learn more about our Pro plans here.

If you are a Free or a Pro user, you can see how many minutes you have left on your Tracks page:

What type of file can I upload?

We recommend you to upload in a lossless format like WAV, FLAC, AIFF, or ALAC. We also support a large variety of lossy formats, including OGG, MP2, MP3, AAC, AMR, and WMA.

The maximum file size is 4GB. If your file exceeds these criteria, please split it into separate uploads.

We transcode all tracks to various codecs which are optimized for streaming playback. We want to preserve your work, that’s why we recommend you upload uncompressed or lossless audio files to ensure that the transcoding process results in the best possible quality. When you make your track downloadable, however, this allows your listeners to download your track in the same format you uploaded it in, without any additional transcoding.

Will my file be available for streaming in high quality?

If you upload a stereo file in a lossless format like WAV, FLAC, AIFF, or ALAC, we’ll transcode it in a high-quality format optimized for music streaming like AAC 256 kbps.

If you have the originals, but you uploaded your tracks in a lossy format before, you can re-upload your tracks by following these steps.

What’s the best file I can upload?

We recommend you to upload in a lossless format like WAV, FLAC, AIFF, or ALAC. If you can, the bit depth and sample rate should be 16 bit and 48 kHz respectively.

When you upload a track on SoundCloud, we optimize it for streaming. As part of that process, we resample and transcode it to a high-performance codec. These codecs are highly optimized, but they can increase peak levels, which can cause clipping. We recommend that you leave between -0.5 and -1 dBFS of headroom to prevent artifacts like clipping during transcoding. Make sure to check the resulting stream in the rare case where more headroom is required.